And thus the serious farce continued to be enacted for some little time in the presence of an outsider, all blissfully ignorant of the fact that he was over-hearing a colloquy of prime importance between two ambassadors of another planet and their run-away king.
I need not add that I was successful in convincing the worthy manager of the genuine character and zealous loyalty of these two dwellers in one of the obscure outlying dependencies of our Indian Empire, so that he was in excellent temper when a sudden summons called him away to the telephone. His withdrawal enabled us to continue our conversation with greater ease, my interlocutors imploring me to reconsider my decision to remain on Earth. Not to prolong this narrative, I shall only add here that finally I consented to meet these envoys again after an interval of one month, by which date I hoped to arrive at a definite decision as to my future course of action. In any event, I pleaded for a breathing-space wherein to digest all the extraordinary adventures of the past few months. Finally, though not over-willingly, they consented to this respite, and then in token of our mutual pact we three simultaneously in accordance with the Meleagrian practice touched our breasts with all ten fingers, a gesture that implies a most solemn oath in cases where the more elaborate ritual is undesirable or difficult to effect.
My last question was directed to their possible difficulty in tracing my whereabouts, for having formed no plans I could not therefore inform them of my movements. But such an objection evidently offered no difficulties to the Meleagrians who only smiled and straightway began to proffer me certain of their goods with a noisy plausibility that formed a perfect imitation of the methods of that humble class whose functions and personality they had usurped. I at once set to chaffer with affected eagerness, with the result that a returning queue of bedizened leaders of fashion, the majority of them with cigarettes in their mouths, entered the hall in time to observe a tall, fair and distinguished-looking gentleman (obviously an Englishman) finally decide to purchase for three guineas a long, soft chuddah shawl which its vendor was folding and twirling before his eyes with easy grace. Having secured my shawl with the requisite cash, the second trader now sidled towards me holding in both his slender brown hands an ornamental casket which he pressed upon me with many encomiums in quaint broken English. A mere flicker of light in the tail of his eye afforded me the necessary hint to accept the box, for which I paid a pound or so. The Indian then wrapped my bargain with much ceremony in blue crinkled paper and carefully deposited it in my hands, wherein it lay heavy as lead. There followed a casual nod on my part, met by elegant salaams to the wealthy sahib, and the next moment I was ascending the staircase with my shawl and box, pursued by the inquiring glances of the astonished ring of ladies.
On gaining my bedroom I cautiously unlocked the casket, which I found was filled to overflowing with English sovereigns and bank-notes. I did not happen to need them, but at least I was touched by the agreeable thought that the donors did not desire their king to suffer the straits of penury in the coming interval of waiting.
VIII
I found Dr Wayne quite ready to acquiesce in my newly formed decision to leave London; indeed, I fancy he still owned some qualms concerning the style and expense of our present abode. The only question that now remained was whither should we proceed. It was the Doctor and not myself who ultimately settled this point, for he had set to search the advertisement columns of his numerous journals, and after much hesitation had lighted on the notice of a Welsh hotel which on reflection commended itself also to my choice. The place was named Glanymôr and was situated on the southern shores of Cardigan Bay at a convenient distance from a small county town. It doubtless possessed the double advantage of quiet and remoteness, the two qualities of locale I especially demanded, so that after some farther discussion I asked Dr Wayne to make the necessary arrangements for our proposed sojourn there. In four days' time therefore from the date of the incident of the Indian peddlers, we were able to leave Paddington Station on our way towards the spot selected, where I looked to obtain the peace and solitude essential for me to refresh my jaded brain and to provoke it to some definite conclusion. I left London without a pang of regret, but also without any pleasurable enthusiasm for the change of air and scene I was seeking; so languid and detached was my outlook towards the future.
After several hours of travelling westward, after noon we reached a large market town of South Wales where a hired motor car was awaiting us. It was a glorious day, cool, calm and bright, with the tang of autumn in the air but the guise of summer still masking the face of Nature. Ere long we were speeding through a district of tall hazel hedges and small fields in endless succession, recalling at times an immense rural chess-board set amidst steep hills of no distinction of outline but with their grassy flanks relieved in many places by patches of autumnal gorse, of roseate ling and of murrey bracken. Little rills, peeping through miniature thickets of delicate lady fern, coursed here and there down the slopes, and at times we were skirting the bank of a torrent with golden-brown peat-stained waters circling and curling around mossy boulders. In many places the hedge banks were still gay with hawkweeds, scabious and belated foxgloves. Already the charm of the revisited Earth was beginning to arouse my sluggish spirits, and the sight of this mountain brook with its suggestions of a happy childhood that delighted in rambling and fishing began to stir the clogged and mantled pool of my earthly memory. Here at any rate was still the Earth, the beloved Earth radiant and unspoiled, the Earth untainted by the deadly miasma of modern progress which is striving with too evident success to convert the whole world into grey suburban uniformity and ugliness. Next we sped through a squalid hamlet compact of raw stuccoed chapels, of tin-roofed cottages and blatant villas of shrieking prosperity; and the late burgeoning of my earthy affections was rudely nipped. Nevertheless, we had soon quitted the ghastly modern township with its ill-dressed and ill-favoured inhabitants, and started to descend by a long gentle declivity to a broad bottom, for we were crossing the lofty watershed between two important Welsh rivers. We finally reached a wide valley cleft by a noble stream that was now a deep silent volume of water overhung by woods of oak and larch, and now a series of broad gushing shallows whose leaping waves broke merrily over opposing snags and rocks. At intervals we passed prosperous farms, old-fashioned country houses that seemed haunts of ancient peace, and stretches of rich pasture that were contiguous with the river's meanderings. Out of this delectable valley we ascended a sharp rise and, avoiding a moderate-sized country town, at length we reached an exposed hill-top which afforded us the prospect of the estuary of the river we had so lately left behind. Some two miles farther ahead our goal was attained, after traversing a tract of sand dunes whose desiccated soil gave sustenance to clumps of glaucous sea-holly and prickly bushes of the sand-rose that at this season bore large sorbs of burnished purple. The hotel itself, a gaunt, rambling, recently erected structure, was perched on the rim of a precipitous range of cliffs. It was certainly a blot upon the landscape; but its interior promised solid comfort, whilst the hearty welcome of the landlord, bereft of his usual tale of summer boarders, made plenteous reparation for the lack of such luxury as we had bidden adieu to in London.
From the balcony outside our rooms upstairs there was a spacious and comprehensive view of the surrounding scenery. In front of us lay a broad basin enclosed in a broken circuit of rising ground and with the yellow sands and foaming bar of the issuing river in the middle distance. The opposite extremity of this half-enclosed sheet of water ended in a projecting rocky headland dotted with white-washed farmhouses and cottages, and barring the farther view of the coast-line to southward. Nearer at hand and adjacent to the inn there jutted forth the northern horn of the little bay, backed by the craggy islet of Ynys Ilar formed like a couched lion with his visage set towards the sinking sun. The rocky shores had assumed everywhere a purple-black tint against the pale blue of sea and sky, whilst inland the bleak unfertile soil showed brown and bare in the walled fields now denuded of their crops of oats and barley. I would not deny a certain inherent charm to the quiet scenery of Glanymôr, and possibly some landscape painter of an unambitious type might have felt tempted to portray its sober tints and restful contours; but I myself experienced a sense of disappointment in what I deemed its negative character. Here was no savage majesty of nature; no sweep of limitless ocean; no thundering breakers on a boundless strand; no gloomy groves descending to the shore; no groups of gnarled and distorted pines that were eloquent of furious gales. And yet the features and general aspect of the place somehow imbued me with regretful thoughts of Tamarida, its haven and its twin promontories. For the first time a craving for my lost palace struck at my heart, as I gazed upon the encircling sweep of land and sea and sky. It may have been my fancy, but I thought I perceived a shadowy vision of that aerial city hover for a second like a mirage in the greyness of the dull horizon.
Our daily life at Glanymôr was placid and not unpleasant. The soft Welsh air, the perpetual sobbing of the sea beneath our windows, the peaceful atmosphere, the wholesome food all reacted on my over-strung nerves, which in time began to recover their wonted tone. I was braced by bathing in the Atlantic waters, icy-cold though they were; I appreciated my daily walks in company with Dr Wayne along the crest of the indented shore that faces the crags of Ynys Ilar. I mightily preferred the cries of the curlew and guillemot to the shouting of men and the hooting of cars in London. Altogether I was tolerably happy but for one drawback, and this was my total inability to concentrate my thinking powers on the very subject I had travelled hither to study. Try as I would, I could not marshal my reasonings and calculations to meet in one point; and so I allowed the crucial question to remain unanswered, almost unattempted, and let myself drift with the current of my own indecision. Instead of racking my brain, I preferred to lie in some sheltered hollow of the rocks above the water, watching the waves collect and disperse with half-shut eyes that idly noted the dull yellow riband of tiny shells which marked the limits of the advancing and receding tides along the line of cliffs. Dr Wayne, in such hours as he could spare from his multiplicity of newspapers, was evidently studying me and my movements with silent interest, but we rarely spoke during our long walks above the coast-line or over the brown fallows and stony paths of the wind-swept treeless countryside.
Thus passed day after day of that precious interregnum, which ought to have been expended in constant deliberation and with the nicest weighing of advantages, instead of being frittered thus in yielding to an insistent temptation to somnolence and vacuity of mind. Perhaps there may have been some external unsuspected force, which was being directed against my own efforts of concentration to prevent my arriving at any conclusion. I had been the plaything of Fate for so long that possibly I may be excused for harbouring such a notion.